Reg Bumps into David Gilmour

You’re probably not going to believe I bumped into David Gilmour from Pink Floyd but it’s true. Not that he stopped to chat. I’m not sure he even saw me, but I saw him.
Let me start at the beginning.
The Old ‘Uns took me to Pompeii a few weeks ago to see the David Gilmour concert in the amphitheatre in the ruins as well as to visit a few local places like Herculaneum and Sorrento.

Welcome home David poster

On our first evening in Pompei (just in case you think I’m being a bit mean with the i’s, I found out the ancient city is spelt Pompeii and the new city is spelt Pompei – perhaps there were a glut of i’s in Italy in ancient times or a shortage in recent times) anyway we saw a crowd outside the town hall beneath the poster welcoming David home after his last concert forty-five years ago. To our amazement, seconds later, black cars pulled up and out got David and his chums. Not that I could see anything other than the top of his panama hat but he was definitely there a few yards away surrounded by the waiting crowd. He went into the town hall and that was that, so we went off for dinner and a stroll.
On our way back, we were walking down the side of the town hall when who should be walking towards us but David, followed by an enormous crowd. Unusually, the Old Girl didn’t have her camera but she did have her phone and she passed it to the Old Boy because as soon as she gets in a crowd, she can’t see anything (I know what that’s like!). Unfortunately, the Old Boy thought she’d set it to video and pressed the button to start it rolling. He thought he was videoing David as he passed us and it wasn’t until he looked, that he saw it had been set to camera and when he pressed the button, he’d simply taken a photo – of his finger. Still, if you look round that, you’ll see David Gilmour in his panama hat.

The Old Boy’s finger with David Gilmour behind

The concert was, as you would expect from a rock legend, well… full of rock and completely legendary.

Here are some photos I took of the Old ‘Uns before the concert began. If you want to see some spectacular photos of the night, click here to go to the Guardian website. And in case you’re in any doubt as to the celebrity circles in which I move, you can actually see the top of the back of the Old ‘Uns’ heads in one of the photos of the crowd! Yes, truly!

Anyway, I’ll tell you more about the rest of the holiday another day.

Are you off on your holidays soon? If you are, don’t forget to take a book. And you need look no further than either of the Old Girl’s books. Don’t worry if you don’t think you’re going to have much time to read. Her latest book is 100 stories of exactly 100 words. So you can read a whole story before you even know you’ve started. And still have 99 more to read. Before you travel, get yourself a copy of THE GREAT WAR – 100 STORIES OF 100 WORDS HONOURING THOSE WHO LIVED AND DIED 100 YEARS AGO. Yes, I know it’s a bit of a mouthful. You can get it as a paperback and ebook here.

And if you’re going on a more leisurely holiday, there’s DAFFODIL AND THE THIN PLACE. You can get it as an ebook from the Muse it Up Publishing site here and it’s available from other ebook retailers. You can also get it in paperback format from Amazon, here.

There are also several stories on this dlog, if you’ve got access to the Internet. Well, you’ve got no excuse to be bored this summer…